Nine hours: aches in the triceps and the biceps, the adductors and the back, the shoulders and the groin – and a right pain in the butt cheeks.
Two bruised knees and the gait of an eighty year old – but it is done. No, not a karate training montage, but an old wooden floor made new.
Karate Kid’s Mr Miyagi would be proud. A front room floor is scraped and chipped free of decades of paint splashes, sanded and hammered and oiled and waxed.
And I am physically whacked. If I sit down I’ll be stuck down, so staying on my feet is the only option. But you can’t beat the sense of achievement of a laborious job well done. As TV Tropes rightly has it:
“Before Enlightenment, carry water, chop wood.
After Enlightenment, carry water, chop wood.”
— Buddhist Saying
Achilles & Aristotle 